ARTISTS

Ampeg SVT Time Live with Aden Bubeck

By Dino Monoxelos

***Some filler words have been removed for easier reading. SVT Time episode originally aired May 9, 2023.

Dino Monoxelos: And we’re live. Hey folks, welcome to SVT time. We are live again. As I always say… it’s better than the alternative, but welcome everybody. It’s Tuesday. It’s another SVT Time. This is episode 54 of SVT Time and, again like I always say, too, we’ll be doing them until they tell us to stop. So today we have a very special guest who, as I was mentioning to him earlier, I was going down the list of all our previous guests like, why haven’t we had Aden on before? Like you’ve been part of the Ampeg family for so long, but anyways, welcome Aden and thank you for joining us today, man. This is awesome.

Aden Bubeck: Thank you for having me, Dino and Dom. This is awesome. Love to be on here talking with you guys.

Dino Monoxelos: Dude, I have to say, if you look at social media, everyone who follows you on social knows how much of an Ampeg fan and Ampeg user you are. And, just, you know, I would say probably half or your posts, show some sort of iteration of an Ampeg rig. And we’re gonna talk about that too, coming up.

Aden Bubeck: Yeah, it really is. I toyed around with other amps in the beginning, mainly because I just didn’t have a lot of money and you’re figuring out what works. But always it was the dream: Ampeg. I want an SVT. I want an 810. That was the end goal for me.

Dino Monoxelos: Right.

Aden Bubeck: Once I was able to do that, I never looked back, and I really rarely play any other amp than Ampeg. It sets the sound to me. It’s what a bass should sound like.

Dino Monoxelos: That’s what a bass should sound like. And of course, Dom, how you doing, buddy?

Dom Liberati: I’m writing down that marketing slogan. That’s a great one. How a bass should sound like.

[Laughing]

Aden Bubeck: That’s great.

Dino Monoxelos: Yeah, yeah. So, man, as with all of our guests, I always like to start with your beginnings.

Aden Bubeck: Yeah.

Dino Monoxelos: You come from a musical family? What was your musical upbringing?

Aden Bubeck: My upbringing was… no one in my family was a musician. No one played an instrument that was even close in my family, but what was amazing was my parents were very young when they had me. So I kind of grew up with my dad being like an older brother. I was turned on to the music that they were listening to, and my parents had an amazing album collection. They started dragging me to concerts when I was about five years old.

Dino Monoxelos: Oh wow.

Aden Bubeck: I got to see so many classic people in concert as a child. I remember all of it very vividly, so even though there was no music in my family, they took me places where it was at and really started the fire. It was interesting because I really kind of grew up in a bubble of sorts for my age group. I grew up in the 80s and the 90s, but my dad hipped me to all the music of the 60s and 70s.

Dino Monoxelos: Sure

Aden Bubeck: I wasn’t into all the bands that my friends were into. I was into Hendrix and Alvin Lee and all these bands, and they’re like, “What is that?” And it’s like, “It’s so great.” So that was my kind of introduction early on in my upbringing in the beginning.

Dino Monoxelos: Right.

Aden Bubeck: Then I started playing trombone in band.

Dino Monoxelos: Oh okay.

Aden: In sixth grade, that was my introduction to playing music. I’m gonna do trombone and did it a long time, all the way through college. Mainly like Classical music trombone, not really jazz stuff, but that was it. It was a great foundation of music theory and understanding how to play with an ensemble and follow a conductor, and just a lot of really good, you know, just good musical foundation.

Dino Monoxelos: Yep, and I’m gonna say it again, once again, we owe it to the music programs in schools.

Aden Bubeck: So much, so much. I… so much so, my major in college was music. It was music education. I was so influenced, and I wanted to do that same thing and influence kids and show them what’s up and tell them this is what’s great. It was… it was a really… you’re right, music programs in schools cannot be stressed enough.

Dino Monoxelos: Yeah.

Aden Bubeck: They’re so important.

Dino Monoxelos: Yeah, and it’s funny too, because it’s, you know, all of us… I say this a lot that some of the best music fans and some of the best musicians aren’t necessarily musicians, like your parents.

Aden: Right.

Dom: Yeah.

Dino: You know what I mean. I’ve got a buddy of mine that knows more about jazz and who played on what albums and what they play, and he doesn’t play a note.

Aden: Right.

Dom: True musicologist.

Dino: Yeah, just being brought up in a musical culture, you don’t necessarily have to have parents as musicians.

Aden: Right, and I think their love for the music, they saw… The thing that my dad instilled in me was hard work, and I thought, “Okay, it’s music. I’m just gonna work hard at it.” It was like, “Oh, this is the formula: work hard, it’s gonna come together,” and they saw me doing that. So I think that they really tried to foster my love with it, and in the way that they could, not playing an instrument, but being lovers of the music.

Dom: Yeah.

Dino: Sure, sure.

Aden: I’m so grateful for that.

Dino: That’s awesome. Now did you go to… I say, North Texas State?

Aden: Yeah.

Dino: I know it’s University of North Texas.

Aden: No, no, yeah. You’re right.

Dino: Did you go as a trombone player or did you go as a bass player?

Aden: So, how that kind of lineage went, my freshman year of college, I was doing trombone and I was studying bass. When I was in high school, the classic story, “Oh, the Jazz Band needs a bass player, hey you play trombone, you can… here’s where B flat and F are, go.” I took very naturally to it and could read really well, that was my good fortune on the instrument. I understood all the theories and could read very well. So my freshman year I was doing trombone and bass.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: Then I had the opportunity to go to Weatherford College, which is a little town west of Fort Worth here, and really, really amazing jazz program that has roots that go back for decades. When I was at the school, JT, Jason Thomas, the drummer for Snarky Puppy, was going to school there. Fred Sanders, who played with Wynton Marsalis, was going to school there.

Dino: Oh wow.

Aden: Ephraim Owens, who plays with the Tedeschi Trucks Band, he was going to school there. We were all students together, and so it was a very amazing program. That’s where I learned how to play upright bass. I mean they literally, the guys in the band took my electric bass and wouldn’t let me have it, and they gave me the upright. It was trial by fire. That was where I went to school there, graduated there, and really figured out how to play jazz there.

That was what happened. It was the guys in the band; they came from the great program at the Arts Magnet High School in Dallas. There were so many great players, Edie Brickell and Erykah Badu, and so many people came from there.

Dino: Oh wow.

Aden: They knew what was up. They knew, “Hey, you need to check out this recording, you need to check out this guy, you need to do this.” They helped explain to me what was up. And so I combined my reading ability with the understanding of jazz, and then that’s when I made the jump to go to North Texas. I was there in the mid-90s, and I played trombone a little bit in some of the legit ensembles, but mainly it was Jazz emphasis with upright primarily.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: So much upright. There were times there, when I was there for years, people didn’t even know I played electric because the school is such a tradition school.

Dom: Yeah.

Dino: Yeah, yeah.

Aden: I was just playing straight ahead upright all the time, but yeah, North Texas is just a great place to be and to kind of spread your wings and figure out what’s going on. In my opinion, it’s a great microcosm of what is going on in all the big cities, meaning I think at UNT, if you can keep your head above water and you don’t get pushed down, you can go pretty much anywhere and keep your head above water…

Dom: Yeah.

Dino: Yeah, exactly.

Aden: …because you’re dealing at UNT. That was the beauty of it. The instructors are amazing and awesome, but it’s the students from around the world that you’re playing with.

I was very rare growing up in the area and going to school there. Everyone was from Europe and Asia and South America and Los Angeles and New York, so you have all these players, and really good players, not just average.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: I mean really, really great players. When I was there, I was fortunate. Keith Carlock was finishing up. Jon Button was finishing up. Mike Pope on bass, so I got to be around those guys and witness their genius. Then I got to go to school with great drummers. Ari Hoenig is one. Rich Redmond, who plays with Jason Aldean, he was there. Blair Sinta, who’s an LA guy, they were all there. Dan Lutz, the bass player, he was playing there. James Driscoll, another great player. So there’s just these great players that you get to learn beside and become your peers and you know they’re going to go off and do great things.

Dino: Yeah, yeah. Anybody that’s not familiar with UNT or North Texas State, it is like the One O’clock Jazz Band. Was it, is it the One O’clock Jazz Band?

Aden: Yeah, the One O’clock, so they have all the way down to the nine and then there are other ensembles. So there’s countless, it’s amazing how many… this area that I’m in, the Metroplex Dallas Fort Worth, the Denton area. Denton is where North Texas is. It probably has more upright players because of the players going to the school…

Dino: Right.

Aden: …per capita then most places, because UNT has a bass program. The great Lynn Seaton teaches Jazz, and then Jeff Bradetich teaches classical, and those are, in the world of upright bass, two of the best educators there are in the world.

Dino: Sure.

Aden: So the program has dozens of students that are playing upright there. It’s pretty cool.

Dino: Yeah, yeah. Obviously my time in LA and hanging out with a lot of guys that went to North Texas and it always had this like fabled aura around it that all the great players come out of North Texas or University of Miami is the other school too.

Aden: Yeah. UNC was very much like a training ground. Bands would come through and pick players.

Dino: Sure, sure.

Aden: It happened all the time, and not just jazz… country bands, rock bands, funk bands. It was very interesting to see that happen a lot.

Dino: That’s cool. That’s so cool. Dom did you have a question?

Dom: I did not.

Dino: Oh, I’m sorry.

Dom: I mean, all because I didn’t know any of this until we were interviewing Jon Button and didn’t realize how big of a school that was in terms of the music industry and just how intense that program was.

Aden: Yeah, it goes back for decades. It was the first school that had a jazz program.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: So it’s very traditional. The lineage of instructors that they’ve had, the guys that lead the One O’clock that are heads of the department, I mean it’s a neat thing.

Dino: Yeah. So how did, obviously being in Texas, but how did you break into, obviously you broke into the country music scene, but you broke into a lot of different scenes…

Aden: Yeah. I was in a very unique position of being in Texas and I actually have never lived anywhere else, but my time with Miranda Lambert, I was pretty much in the Nashville scene.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: I mean, I was with everybody there, and I wasn’t getting calls for anything here, but I would get calls all the time for there because I was off most of the time there. So it all started, I played in the Texas scene down here. It’s really awesome, there’s so much great music. I was down here for at least a decade playing with a lot of different bands, and the tour manager of Miranda Lambert had worked with me with another artist, Max Stalling, and recommended me for the Miranda gig. This is very early on, 2005, right when her record had just come out. So I joined on. I had known Miranda, she had opened shows for us down in Texas, her and her dad playing when she was 17. So I had known Miranda a long time, and so it was really cool. She kind of hand-picked the band from Texas.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: So everyone works from Texas. Miranda lived in Texas. We were all from Texas, but we got on the tour bus and we went and toured the whole country all the time.

Dino: Sure.

Aden: We were gone a lot in the beginning. We were doing 200 shows a year at least.

Dino: Wow.

Dom: Wow.

Aden: She’s one of those road dogs, those old school road dogs. She’s going to be out there doing it until she can’t anymore. But that was really getting tied in and then getting connected with so many people that I’ve admired in the Nashville scene and being able to call them friends. It was just a cool experience in the Nashville community. They couldn’t be any better. I couldn’t say any more good things about them.

Dino: Yeah, yeah. In fact, Aden and I were talking early before the show started, Dom. I was telling him the story how I’m actually learning a Miranda song and the video that the artist, the girl I was playing with, sent me was from, I forget what year but it was the Grammys that Aden played a song called Little Red Wagon with Miranda, so I was picking his brain. I was like, man, I’ve been playing that song all wrong the whole time. I’ve been playing it down like low F, but you brought up an interesting point. How you took that part and you learned that part from Glenn Worf and your relationship with the great Glenn Worf. So tell us a little bit about that.

Aden: Yeah, so that was one of the coolest things for me. Way before I played with Miranda, I was a giant fan of Glenn Worf from Nashville. There were players, you know, Glenn Worf and Michael Rhodes and Mike Brignardello and there were all these great players in Nashville that I started transcribing. I took my jazz study and basically just shifted it over to country music and transcribed so many bass lines note for note and have catalogs of them. Just learning what’s up and okay, this player does this and that. I was a huge fan of Glenn Worf already, so I remember getting the gig and I went to the record store immediately, bought the record, and I had no idea who’s playing on this. I remember opening up the Miranda album and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, it’s Glenn.” I was so excited because I knew already, I know what he’s gonna do and it was even better than, you know, because Glenn was already kind of passively producing those albums just by his bass playing.

Dino: Okay, yeah.

Aden: Those Miranda songs, if you listen to them, the bass playing is not normal.

Dino: Right.

Aden: It’s not your typical stock. It’s very take the lead of the song, and it’s amazing. It’s a beautiful thing. For 12 years, Glenn would record these records, and then Glenn and I would talk. He would send me tracks, and we would talk about it. It was amazing, just getting to learn these parts and learn what he’s doing.

One cool thing I learned, and I’ll say this, I would get a track early on and I would learn the bass part. Then, a couple of weeks later, I would get a different version—completely different take. We’re talking drastically different bass line, and I was like, “What is happening?” Glenn’s one of those great people. Jim Keltner is one of them, and I’m sure a lot of the greats are too, but every take is different for them.

Dino: Sure.

Aden: They’re striving for different things on every take. So, he would send me an early take, it might have been take one or take two. Then, they decided, “Okay, we like take four better.” By then, he was already doing this totally other melodic thing. It was very interesting to see this, like, “Oh, okay. I’m seeing how his brain’s working.” He’s figuring this out, and that was really neat to see how it’s really an organic growing thing.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: It’s not regimented in this and this and this. It’s, what is the song telling me to do and what’s going to happen with this.

Dino: Yeah, and it’s not the traditional root fifth country bass line.

Aden: No. He’ll do that if it needs, but no, not at all. Well you know, it’s learning that tune that you’re doing. It’s very… it’s cool, it’s very rock.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: It’s a cool bass part.

Dino: Yeah. Now you’ve done a… I mean, obviously, you’ve done a ton of sessions. Do you get into a situation where you play a couple of takes, and some of them may be different from one another, and you’re like, “Man, this is the take,” but then the producer goes, “No.” Your view of what the take is that you think they should choose, and the take that they actually choose, you’re like, “Oh, really? You want…” Do you ever get into that situation?

Aden: Yeah. I can and I have to say I usually… the thing, and you guys know this. As a bass player you have to kind of be egoless at times and it’s hard. Some people can’t get over that but as a bass player I think it’s a great trait to have because you need to be able to bend and make things work. I’ll tend to go with what the producer says but I will say if it’s something that I’m like man I really like this from the take before, maybe I’ll punch in what I had done and fix it on that tape that the producer likes. Or a lot of times people they comp takes now still.

Dino & Dom: Yeah, yeah.

Aden: I can tell them, man I really like my first verse from take three and then they can just comp that into the take four or whatever they liked. I see that a lot.

Dino: Okay, okay.

Dom: How do you decide… do you have like one bass that you typically go to, this is my recording bass for this genre or is it kind of per song you’re like, okay I think this one’s gonna work.

Aden: I have to make sure my wife’s not close by.  I have a lot of basses and that is something that I grew up kind of, you know, you read Bass Player Magazine and you read Guitar for the Practicing Musician when you’re a teenager and you read these things and you’re like dude Michael Rhodes brings a dozen instruments to a session and at first you don’t know and you think, oh that’s stupid. That’s overkill, but it is not at all. It’s every bass has a different… but I kind of have, I keep very detailed kind of spreadsheet note type things with the… because I have such a big collection I have to keep notes of what’s doing what. The covid lockdown got me really, I had so much time I went through all my basses and figured out what are they doing, what role are they playing. So I do have like kind of a roster. I have one bass that I will always start with. There’s a manufacturer down here in Texas, Brimstone Guitars. This guy named Rob Bridges who I just love dearly and he makes just beautiful instruments with a lot of personality. He made me a really great four-string PJ and that one is just to tape… it’s so much my favorite bass.

Dom: Yep

Aden: It kind of falls in that line of a Sadowsky vibe, but a little more vintage, but it’s really nice. So it can be modern and it can be vintage because you have to, but then after that I start bringing different flat wound basses and hollow bodies and short scales.

Dom: Yep

Aden: I’ve actually been working on something and I’m gonna try to figure out a way to get this published and get some things out. I’ll send you guys a copy and you’ll see what I mean. I started this kind of list of all the great studio players. What instruments specifically did they bring to the session. Maybe what type of strings were on it and then what type of interface they plugged into, be an amp or a DI or whatever.

Dino: Interesting.

Aden: I’ve been putting this list together for a long time and I went back. I have every issue of Bass Player Magazine ever.

Dom: No way.

Aden: I went through everything and pulled everything I needed. I started with Milt Hinton.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: Born in, I think that’s 1910, I think is what, I could be wrong but I think it’s right. So I started with 1910 birth year. Everybody by birth year so you could see how the lineage would fall.

Dino: Yep

Aden: It has been one of the coolest things to learn from. Every day I look at it and I learn new things of, oh man that’s what, okay that guy was bringing this and this guy was bringing the same thing. It’s like this spiderweb of knowledge of bass stuff.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: It’s so cool.

Dom: That’s cool.

Aden: You really see how Jamerson and Duck Dunn and Joe Osborn and Paul McCartney is right in there in the age. People think, oh he’s way later it’s like dude if you look at the year they’re all born he’s right there with all those guys. It’s such a cool resource and I’m hoping to get that kind of published and get that out there.

Dom: That’s awesome.

Dino: Yeah, that would be fantastic.

Aden: I’ll send you guys a copy and you’ll dig it and I wanna get both of you guys… get your arsenals and put them on there.

Dino: We’d be happy to.

Aden: Yeah.

Dino: I’ve got a couple of… again I can’t tell my wife…

Aden: To go all the way back to Dom’s question. Yeah I think one bass can do it, but I’m a big believer of bringing… I think at least six is what you need for nowadays.

Dom: Right, because how else do you know… You got like a verse…

Aden: Yeah because every producer is different. Every artist is different and every one of them has a different idea and one of them could be like, I want a jazz bass on this.

Dom: Yeah

Aden: And if you don’t have a jazz bass well you know. They can be that specific. I want a five string on this.

Dom & Dino: Yeah.

Aden: I wanted this on this. I want… you know. I want to be able to have it and I also always bring my upright, too. I want to have my electrics and my upright because you never know. You just never know.

Dino: Yeah, yeah.

Dom: I’ve gotten to the point now where I’m doing, okay P bass in the verse. It’s a fretless bass in the pre-chorus.

Aden: Ooh.

Dom: It’s P bass in the chorus. Dino looks at me like, dude what are you doing to yourself.

Dino: No, I would not…

Aden: That is so nerdy and awesome.

Dino: He has shown me some of his tracks in Logic. It’s like you got 45 tracks of bass going on here. I’m totally… I’m throwing him under the bus right now.

Aden: I love that. I love that idea. I need to start doing that.

Dino: There’s nothing worse than, you know, with anything, being out fishing and going “oh I left that lure at home or I left that you know this bass would be perfect on this trip, but it’s at home.”

Aden: And that’s a great analogy of you’re in the boat in the middle of a body of water and you can’t get it. If you’re in the studio if they want a fretless bass and you don’t have a fretless you’re like, “well dang.”

Dino: Yeah, I have one at home.

Aden: Right.

Dino: Which at that point they’re like…”Yeah well never mind.” So you also mentored under a lot of… You mentioned Joe Osborn and Will Lee as well as Michael (rest in peace) but man we all kind of come from that school.

Aden: Yeah. I’ll start kind of like chronologically…

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: I’m trying to think of where my respect and love and admiration came from. It came from the records that my dad would give me and he would hear me or know that I’m trying to do this. So he could go from their record collection, he’d pull like a Hendrix record, “Hey listen to this.”

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: “Hey listen to this, listen to Chicago Transit Authority, listen.” He would turn me on to things. So these guys on these records were like, you know, it’s the baseball cards that I collected.

Dom & Dino: Yeah.

Aden: It was these people, oh my gosh! He’s on this record, he’s doing this, and he’s on this one. I admire these guys so much. Being a child of the 80s, I watched David Letterman every night. That was my jam in the 80s. Every single night, I watched David Letterman, and one of the reasons was the band.

Dino: Sure.

Aden: I had always, from the beginning, had a very eclectic music taste. It was never one style; it was any style was game, and I noticed that right away about the band on Letterman. They would play any style and play it with a genuine authority and respect for the music that they were playing. It wasn’t like “Oh, I just learned this, blah blah blah,” so I know when they play the blues, it was like…”wow, that’s a blues band.” Then when they played with Emmylou Harris, it was like, “Well, they’re playing like country, listen to this.” I loved it. So when I was a trombone player, I played in this really great band, the Fort Worth Youth Jazz Band, and we got to go in 1990 and play Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: I was so excited and so I wrote Will Lee a letter to David Letterman. You know, Will Lee, to the studio and plenty of time in advance because I knew like a year in advance before I was going to go.

Dino: Sure.

Aden: One day my phone rings at home and my mom answers and she’s like “hold on” and she’s like “it’s Will Lee” and I was like 18 with a mullet. And I was just like “What?,” so I answered the phone and Will’s so amazing and he’s like “Man I want to come to the…” I invited him to come to the show at Carnegie Hall and I said “I want you to be my guest” and he said “Can I bring my girlfriend?” and I was like “Yeah.” So he came to the show and we met and became just really fast friends because Will is originally from Texas. He’s from Huntsville, Texas is where he graduated high school from and so we really hit it off.

My dad’s side of the family is from Jersey so every Christmas we would go up to Jersey and spend time and go in to New York City just to have a good Christmas time and I would go to Will’s place. I get to stay with him. He would take me to sessions, take me to the Letterman tapings. He just showed me so much and still to this day he’s one of my dearest friends and if I ever have any question about anything I always ask him or is this cool and he’ll tell me if it’s cool or not.

(Laughing)

Aden: Everything about him I just love dearly and I’m so fortunate to have gotten to learn from him and soak up all the different things that he has shown me.

Dino: Man, wow. Yeah.

Aden: The power of a letter. The power of a letter.

Dino: Right. Don’t ever be afraid to write.

Aden: No.

Dino: Don’t be afraid to write to your Heroes, I guess.

Aden: No. You mentioned the other two. Let me go to the next one, which, for me, was a really big one. I didn’t get to spend as much time because it was later in his life, but I got to spend time with Joe Osborn before he had passed. That was a really cool experience. We were on tour with Kenny Chesney for a year, and Kenny Chesney’s band, the horn leader, was Jim Horn, the legendary sax player who recorded with Steely Dan. I mean, just Rolling Stones and everybody. We went through Shreveport on the Chesney tour, and Jim and I became fast friends on that tour just because I knew who Jim was and I respected him tremendously. I would love to hear story after story every night, and when we rolled through Shreveport he was like, “Hey man, you want to go meet Joe?” And I was like, “Are you kidding me?” And he’s like, “Yeah, because he’s going to be recording when we’re there and we can go meet him.” So Jim and I got in a taxi and drove to this little studio in Shreveport, and there’s Joe in there. Joe and Jim caught up. They hadn’t seen each other in years, and it was really cool. That was the first time I got to meet Joe. From then on out, I would make drives over. It was only like a three-hour drive from where I lived.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: Joe and I would go have ribs and go fishing and I would just ask him questions about bass and he was just amazing. Just so so amazing because if you’re a Joe fan you know. I mean Joe is one of the unique voices of our instrument. When you hear one downbeat you immediately… oh there’s Joe, “that’s awesome.”

Dino: Yep.

Aden: I just learned a lot from him. He really was just so wise and amazing.

Dino: That is so cool.

Aden: Then the other mentor you had mentioned and this is the person I wanted to talk about last because, I’m gonna get verklempt. I’m gonna say a little sad, but Michael Rhodes.

Dino: Yep.

Aden: To use a Star Wars analogy, he’s my Yoda. He’s the guy that any question I ever had any high level stuff, very heady heady heady song stuff he could explain to me. Just by observing him. I got to meet him the very first CMA Awards that we played in New York City in 2005. Rhodes was there playing with Brooks and Dunn with an all-star band and I obviously was a fan just like I was with Worf. I had transcribed a lot of Rhodes stuff, his Rodney Crowell stuff and his Hank Williams Jr. bass playing. All that stuff. I was already a huge fan, so getting to meet him, and we hit it off instantly. It was just the strangest kind of… this very love at first sight. It was a very weird experience, like oh my gosh, we both felt this connection and we tried to hang out as much as we could there. Then I tried to see him whenever I was in Nashville. We would try to have dinner or if he was on the road coming through when he was with Bonamassa I got to see him a lot with that.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: It was very hard losing him. He’s a big one but he left the greatest catalog of bass lines.

Dino: Right, right.

Aden: If you want to know how to make a song feel… man.

Dino: Yeah. It’s true, it’s true. Man, I got to tell you, I’ve met Michael several times. Every time I’ve met him and we’re talking when I say several times like years apart from each time.

Aden: Right.

Dino: And every time I’ve met Michael… “Hi Dino how are you?” He always remembered my name. You can understand why people wanted to work with him. Not just because of his playing, because he was such an amazing player, but just such an amazing person. An amazing human.

Aden: Yeah. There was a wisdom and an elegance that he walked with. That was different than a mortal person.

Dino: Yeah. It’s funny because Michael is one of those artists that, from a manufacturers standpoint and an artist relations standpoint, one minute he’d be on a tour and he’d be in front of a Fender bass amp, and then he’d be on another tour in front of an Ashdown, and then in another tour, he’d be in front of an SVT. And I would get asked all the time… “is Michael an Ampeg artist?” And my go-to reply, and I only say this about a few artists, has always been: “Michael can play whatever Michael wants to play.”

Aden: That’s brilliant.

Dino: And if he wants an Ampeg rig, I’d be more than happy to help him out with an Ampeg rig. That’s, you know, and like I said, there’s only… and Dom’s heard me say this before, I would think like Pino was probably in that same ball.

Aden: Right.

Dino: That same category, it’s like these guys are legends. They play whatever suits the gig that they’re on.

Aden: Right exactly like Dom was talking about, the different basses you know at the session answer the same thing.

Dom & Dino: Yeah.

Aden: You’re exactly right.

Dino: Hey, I’m going to put a quote up here. Actually, it looks like one of your buddies here, TJ… Actually, I can’t put a quote because I don’t have the producing button, Erin. I was going to put a quote here from TJ Callaway.

Aden: Oh TJ’s an amazing engineer in Dallas, and bass player.

Dino: It says, “Aden is  a first call session guy here in the D/D/FW area…” Dallas Denton Fort Worth area, I’m assuming…

Aden: Yeah.

Dino: “…I’ve been fortunate enough to engineer and hang out on a couple of sessions he was on and he just NAILS it right away. He’s a beast.” So that’s from your buddy ,TJ.

Aden: I love TJ. He’s a great dude. I don’t get to see him enough.

Dino: That’s cool, that there’s a validation right there.

Aden: Yeah and to kind of segue into that. So after I come off the road with Miranda its that kind of the normal thing as you do a road gig and then you move into the session side of things.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: And I did not get moved to Nashville. Family things and just a lot of different things didn’t work out, but everything was a blessing with that. In this area, the studio scene is really amazing. I have been so blessed with, because I had geared up with my bass collection, preamps, and everything I was doing to do studio work. When I came off the road, I was like, do I need to be in L.A., do I need to be in Nashville? What do I need to do this? And then all of a sudden it was like this studio, this studio, and this studio, and there’s so many studios. There’s three studios primarily in Fort Worth that I work at that are great. Then I go to Houston and Austin quite a bit. I go to Tyler, there’s a great studio out there.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: I’m doing close to about an album worth of material a week.

Dom: Wow.

Dino: Oh, wow.

Aden: A lot of single song recordings. A lot of people do that, but then there’ll be some different single recordings all during the week. Then sometimes a full project. So the recording aspect of that has been really tremendous down here.

Dom: That’s cool.

Aden:  So pleasantly happy and it’s really for the most part, it’s all great music.

Dino: Yeah, yeah and you didn’t have to go to LA.

Aden: No, it’s really kind of cool. I get to be here in Texas where I grew up.

Dino: Right.

Aden: I’m proud of us down here in Texas. Texas has a cool thing musically that’s different and I’m just glad that people are down here being able to record it and capture what’s going on with the artists and what’s happening.

Dino: Hey tell me how did the three string bass come about? Was that a studio thing? Or a live thing?

Aden: No. Okay it’s a great story and I’ve been kind of researching

the lineage of the three-stringed instrument and it all started kind of back in the 1600s… three string uprights.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: They thought that it sounded better than the four string. The tone of it. So for a couple hundred years I think that he said the Germans were the ones that were all four strings, but like the French and the Italians and all them played three strings. So that lineage goes back, way back. How I came into it was Pete Anderson who is Dwight Yoakam’s guitar player, producer from all the heyday stuff.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: He contacted a buddy of mine who owns Glendale guitars, really great Guitar Company. Pete wanted to make the perfect Honky Tonk bass.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: Right, and this is to quote Pete he said, “get rid of the G string because you don’t need to play high, make it wide spacing to slow you down because you don’t need to play fast,'” and he says “don’t play above the fifth fret” but I’m all the way up, all the time, but that was how he designed it. He had one built and this was in 2007, I believe. He had one built and then he ended up not getting it for some reason and so my buddy contacted me and was like, “dude I got this three-string bass that Pete designed and it’s really cool.” I was kind of at a time, I’m literally playing the same 20 songs for two years.

Dino: Right.

Aden: You kind of get in a mode where you’re like “I need something to spark me and do something.” I’ve got this bass and it was the spark that I needed because it just changed the way that I thought about playing a lot. Dino and I were talking about this on the three string… you’re taught in normal school efficiency of motion, right, you wanted a lot more of this than this. (hand motions to show a slight vertical neck movement vs less efficient dramatic horizontal neck movement)

Dino: Right, right.

Aden: You want this, but on a three string you only have one octave so there is way more of this… (hand motions to  show a dramatic horizontal movement up and down the neck)

Dom: Yeah.

Aden: I kind of dig that. I fell in love with this instrument and now I have four of them. I’ve got the first one was a 50s style P, like a slab body 51 P and then I have a jazz bass that’s made out of the stage wood from the jazz club, Caravan of Dreams, here in Fort Worth and that’s a really cool Jazz. Then I have two split Ps and this is one right here. (Holds up bass)

Dino: That is so cool.

Dom: Really cool. Yeah.

Dino: Now round wounds or flat wounds?

Aden: These are flats.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: I’ve got flats on two and rounds on two.

Dino: Okay, okay.

Aden: It’s just that…

Dom: I didn’t see that binding at first around the body .

Aden: Yeah, here… (Shows body)

Dom: Wow.

Dino: Beautiful.

Aden: He does beautiful work. Even the back is really pretty.

Dom: Whew. Looks amazing.

Aden: But it’s really nice man, he nails it, because the hard part is you have to have a custom bridge and you have to have custom pickups…

Dom & Dino: Yep.

Aden: …for the three string and both guys that have made them after they make a couple they’re kind of like “I’m not doing that anymore, this really stinks.” But Rob actually, he’s been making some for some guys and getting different orders and they’re really cool. I’ve only done one gig ever that the singer said I had to have a high E flat and I couldn’t get that on this bass.

Dino: So I have to ask you the million dollar question is the first time you just brought your three string to a gig? Well have you ever have you done that?

Aden: Oh yeah, I play live. I play almost all three strings now.

Dino: Really?

Aden: Yeah I play it in all the gigs, but when I first brought it there was very much of… you’re obviously the E string is the E so it’s down there, you know that, but you’re so used to this top string being the G.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: There was a lot of five, one, if I would accidentally hit what I thought was the G string and it’s really a D and I’m like, “oh no.” It was a couple weeks of that, like the brain, but once I got over it I don’t have any issues now. I can jump back and forth. I don’t play five strings but I have basses that are four strings that are tuned B E A D.

Dino: Okay, okay.

Dom: Yeah, okay.

Aden: Which is just like the three with a low string.

Dino: Sure.

Aden: So that works in my brain pretty well.

Dino: Okay.

Dom: Yeah.

Dino: I was just gonna say, it’s like I would get that same feeling the first couple of gigs, like leaving the house without the cell phone. It’s like…

Aden: Totally.

Dino: Oh man I don’t have a four string.

Aden: It was very much that where, I wouldn’t… In the beginning I would bring two basses, a four string and a three, just in case.

Dino: Just in case.

Aden: Then I got to a point where I was like, okay I’m cool I can just bring the threes and I’ll be, you know…

Dino: I get anxious just bringing a four string to a gig.

Dom: I know, same.

Dino: …because I’m primarily a five-string guy.

Aden: Right.

Dino: I like having a P bass on.

Aden: So for me because I just don’t like the big wide five necks. I just like a regular P neck. The three string neck on this is actually their jazz necks.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: Right. This is just a straight ahead, like a 60s jazz neck. Real nice so it doesn’t feel weird.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: But I have the hip shot double lever and it can do a D and a C.

Dom: Oh wow.

Dino: Oh.

Aden: And I love that because I can get down to that low C.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: And it speaks pretty well.

Dino: Wow.

Aden: I mean it’s pretty legitimate and you know you’re one note shy from a five string but I kind of get like that, it’s fun.

Dom: That’s crazy. That’s awesome. I assume that the typical, your go-to movements that you’re not even thinking about when you’re doing a fill or something like that, where it’s kind of almost pre-programmed in a way that probably totally gets rewritten, which is a cool thing. It’s almost like…

Aden: You gotta think.

Dom: More neural pathways. You’re like a crazy new pathways.

Dino: Now you got to think notes instead of positions.

Aden: Totally. It’s just crazy. The worst is when you’re in drop C and then that often becomes a minor six.

Dino: Right.

Dom: Oh man.

Aden: Like it’s so weird.

Dino: Yeah, that is wild. Now Is he still building three string basses?

Aden: Yeah, he still builds fours and threes and guitars, too.

Dino: We’ll have to, after the broadcast, when we repost this broadcast, we’ll have to post some links.

Aden: Yeah, Brimstone guitars. He’s amazing woodworker.

Dino: That is so cool. All right let’s talk about amps.

Aden: Yes.

Dino: My first question to you is the SVT MP, the mic pre or the SVT DI which do you prefer?

Aden: You are making me so excited right now. I just… and my wife would know if she heard you ask me that question. My wife would be like, “oh my gosh really,” she knows. She’s heard me talk about this way too much. Okay so I wanted to say one little thing to go into this, the time that I had discovered these DI’s I had joined onto Ampeg and Ted Kornbloom was the guy. And he would always be at all the award shows backstage and Ted and I hit it off and I just I loved Ted so much, and when he got rid of the company he came to me and said, “Hey man, promise me, do this for my family, will you please play Ampeg always.”

Dino: Really?

Aden: He really pulled me aside and I was like man I shook his hand and I said “Yes I will. I will always.” I have no reason not to and it was a cool thing and I loved him from that, but that was the time I had gotten one of the DI’s, I remember. Falling in love with it and being just like, “oh.” So the question of the DI versus the MP… I prefer them both for different situations.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: The SVT DI I prefer for live.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: And the reason I prefer it for live… Now it will work great in the studio. That doesn’t mean that oh no, if I have to use it in the studio I’m like, wonderful.

Dino: Yep, yep.

Aden: But I think live, the SVT DI is amazing live, because it sends to the front of house. You’ve got a tube option and you’ve got a really great… that Crimson Audio transformer that’s in there it sounds really good and warm and if you turn off the tube you’ve got a good passive transformer, so you have two options to sit in front of house, which is awesome. Then you have the option to hit your amp with a tube pre, out of the quarter inch out and I find that so useful because my main rig right now has been the RB 115 with my SVT DI hitting it with the tube. Man it sounds great. So I think live that is my favorite rig. In the studio I prefer the MP more because of the gain knob on it and the pad options, because I can run mic level or line level and some studios that… like if I have my way and everything is what I want to do you’re going to bypass it and I’m going to run that thing in straight hot at that line level and bypass all the pres and just hit the tape machine with just that tube pre.

Dino: Yep.

Aden: And that thing sounds so good. That’s why I love that for the studio because then I have the options of mic or line level and it’s super good and I… I don’t know if I’m gonna tell too many of my secrets.

Dino: I’m like…

Aden: Step back for a second.

Dom: That’s smart.

Dino: That’s funny because I see your Instagram posts and I gotta tell you… let me see if I can, I think I have sharing capabilities where I can share my screen here.

Aden: Yeah.

Dino: But like a lot of your Instagram posts you will show your pedal board…

Aden: Yeah.

Dino: Let me see here is this going to come through, window…Yeah. Let’s see if this comes. Oh Erin… Yeah. I can’t share it right now, but anyways I’m gonna stop sharing that. Oh, there we go, okay. Thank you. (Aden’s bass rig photo on screen)

Dom: That’s awesome.

Aden: That was the other night.

Dom: Before being two one twelves?

Aden: Two one twelves, yeh, I got those recently and just love them.

Dino: So this is your studio board then, I’m assuming because it’s got the mic pre on it. (Showing Aden’s pedal board)

Aden: Yep, that’s it.

Dino: Okay, all right and I’ll go back to this picture then. It’s SV, the V4 and then two single twelves with the DI on the board here.

Aden: Yeah, with the DI hitting the tube pre, hitting that even, it’s more tubes are better. It’s all just tubealicious.

Dino: It’s funny because I have been on the search for… let me see if I stopped sharing my screen here. I’ll show one more bass porn here…

Dom: You need one more 112 for… one for each string.

Dino: Right, one for each string.

Aden: Oh I like that Dom, that’s good.

Dom: That bass in that photo is gorgeous man. What is that? (image of bass)

Aden: Actually that’s a… I’m not an expensive taste bass player meaning I love cheap basses and then like tweaking them out and making them really cool.

Dom: Yeah.

Aden: And I had enough things laying around to build a 50 style P bass.

Dom: Nice.

Aden: So I put it together and I made it my Keith Ferguson tribute bass, the bass player from The Fabulous Thunderbirds.

Dino: Oh nice.

Aden: He was an amazing bass player, but I’ve actually… there’s a lot of people around here that knew him really well and played in bands so I’ve interviewed a lot of them and found out all these details about what strings he used, what pickup he used. I was able to tweak it and it turned out to be a really good looking bass.

Dino: That is cool. What I was gonna say is ever since I’ve been following you on Instagram and seeing your post, too, I’ve been on the unending search for a mic pre, because I’ve got like five or six DIs, and I found a buddy of mine that was willing to trade me his mic pre for a DI, so it was an even swap I gave him.

Dom: Nice.

Aden: That’s a good deal.

Dino: So now I’ve got the mic pre here in the studio, but I wanted to pick your brain like what do you prefer live versus in studio?

Aden: I’ll go ahead and say this too because I did a lot of shootouts, before I had my Pro Tools rig up and running I would have to bug on my engineer friends and be like “Hey can I bum an hour after the session and can we go through 10 different P basses and listen to…” They would be like, “Are you serious?” I’m like “Yeah, but please help me,” but in all that because I borrowed at one point… I borrowed every major tube DI that I could find and did a shootout and really like fine-tuned and found out a couple things. My big finding, it’s not like a secret, the SVT DI has a 12AU7 in it.

Dino: Yes.

Aden: I prefer that contour of that tube. That’s the same tube that other popular tube DI guys use. Compared to the 12AX7 which is what a lot of them use, the 12AX7 to me is a little too much high end and it’s a little too gainy. I want a little more buttery and soft.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: That AU7 seems to fit the perfect balance.

Dino: Sure.

Aden: I was using an AY7, there’s a company that uses that in their DI’s and that was awesome real low gain, but the AU7 just is a little bit more sparkle.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: So that being said in my MP I’ve got two AU7s in there.

Dino: Oh you swapped out the…

Aden: Because the MP uses an AX7 in the first spot and the UA7 in the second spot. I had talked to Obeid about this. I ran into them at a guitar show. I was walking down the aisle and I’m such a nerd I actually know what Obeid looks like and he walked by, I’m like, “Oh my God” because I had so many questions and I was like, “dude talk to me for like five minutes here” and he was telling me that second slot has to be a UA7.

Dino: Oh…

Aden: So the first slot can be mixed around.

Dino: Yep.

Aden: I think if you were using this as a mic pre the 12AX7 is your best bet.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: But as a strictly bass DI I like the U7 in it, it’s real nice.

Dino: I’m gonna try, let’s see, I’m gonna steal that idea. I’m sorry.

Aden: Dude, go, yeah.

Dom: It’s a good tip.

Dino: So we had another gentleman of a friend of yours, AJ Burton.

Aden: I see that.

Dino: “Love working with you every week man. Every week is a different bass and a different sound. Pleasure getting to mix for you.”

Aden: Yeah, he’s our monitor engineer at the church that I play at. I’ve got a really great church gig that pretty much kept me alive during the shutdown. I mean without it, it was good and I’ve been there for like 15 years now.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: But yeah AJ does the ears there and he’s awesome. Every week at church it’s the Met Church out of Keller, Texas and every week I bring a different bass. We have a front of house engineer, we have a broadcast engineer, we’ve got all these different engineers and they have to deal with me. I’m always asking them “Okay what did this bass sound like?” or “What did that bass sound like?” but every week it’s a different instrument and it just depends.

Dom: That’s awesome.

Aden: Yeah, it’s silly.

Dom: No, I did the same thing for years. This church in Beverly Hills… this one day I brought a Hoffner and I was playing it the McCartney style to pick and everything and the guy’s like, “Look dude I know that’s amazing, that is like the worst bass for worship, it is so distracting.”

(Laughter)

Aden: That’s true. I love that. That would be a great t-shirt.. worst bass for worship.

Dom: Yeah.

Dino: That is actually funny. Wow, but at least I would rather have that than have when you ask a front of house guy… hey… I’m getting an awful lot of slapback here.

Dom: It came out of nowhere.

Dino: Are you hearing it too. Let me see if I can fix that… but

Aden: I don’t have it.

Dom: I think it’s gone.Now I have it.

Dino: Now you have it, I’m spreading it. Wow, hold on let me see if I can… see if that goes away. Nope and it doesn’t. All right, all right. But yeah I have that it’s better that then you run into the sound engineer that’s like, “dude this bass it just, it sounds fine.” Like they could care less what the bass sounds like really.

Aden: Right.  I always show up, sometimes I’ll push it, like you said I’ll bring the, that’s the worst bass for worship type of situation and I try to force it. There’s been a couple when the broadcast engineer will come out of the room and he’ll be like “Dude, that’s no. We can’t.” I’m like “Well thank you for telling me. I’ll get my P bass and we’ll be good.”

Dino: I would rather have somebody tell me that than to just like not tell me.

Aden: Yeah, and it’s rare that he does that but I’m glad that he does because I think that’s important and that being said like every situation be it live, the broadcast situation is a completely different situation versus studio situation. Certain basses are golden in those situations. Put them in another one and they’re horrible.

Dino: Yeah. That’s true.

Aden: It’s interesting you know, you have to kind of know what you’re dealing with.

Dino: Yeah.

Dom: There’s another awesome post here from Wendolyn which is a cool name. Very cool name.

Dino: “Aden is the reason I wanted to play bass. He put me on the right track with Stax and Motown stuff! He continues to be an inspiration!”

Aden: Yeah, she was one of my first bass students and she went on to go to Berklee and graduate there. She’s a badass and so she lives in Austin. That’s awesome.

Dino: Okay. Are you still teaching? Do you still teach…

Aden: I am. I teach some that… so when I was in college my major was elementary music ed with jazz emphasis studies.

Dino: Okay.

Aden: So I guess I wanted to teach Bebop Tunes to kindergarteners is what I was like. What I’m qualified to do, but no, I’ve been doing a lot of private stuff with small kids and really it’s been amazing because I’m of the mindset you just have to tell these kids what’s up and they’ll get it. I have six-year-olds that can read national number charts and transpose.

Dom: Wow.

Aden: It’s just because I told them what it is and they go, “oh okay,” and I’m like dude if somebody would’ve told me that when I was young, it would have saved decades of understanding, but it’s just like, I really love being real with these kids and letting them know this is what’s up man, let’s do this. Then I teach at Weatherford College where I graduated from. I’m back out there teaching adjunct bass.

Dino: Oh right on. Cool.

Aden: It’s really fun you know doing that level too, working on the high end heady, you know a lot of jazz stuff, Jamerson…

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: Cool stuff.

Dino: Yeah, you know I miss that atmosphere and every now and then I’ll shoot down to Boston and hang out with some of my friends at Berklee like Danny Moe and Bailey and those guys and it’s just a different atmosphere. I miss that atmosphere, not of school, but just hanging out with a bunch of bass players and talking, not even talking gear, just talking music like “what are you listening to?”

Dom: Yeah, right.

Dino: Yeah, I really do miss that.

Dom: Like the thirst, the communal hunger to be better and to like find the next thing. I like that.

Dino: Thank you, yeah.

Aden: I try to have coffee with a lot of the bass players in this area.  We almost weekly, just to be like, “Hey, let’s go get a donut and coffee and talk. What have you been listening, what you’ve been using, what have you been doing?” and you know I think that’s important that the community of it all.

Dom: I completely agree.

Dino: Dom who did you have coffee with yesterday morning?

Dom: I was gonna say Dino sent me on an errand to just to drop off some gear, you know, “just drop off some gear,” and I go to meet Jon Button and Hutch Hutchinson at a coffee here in Studio City and it was like one of the best mornings of my life.

Aden: That’s awesome.

Dino: They’re sending me pictures of Dom holding all these basses that Hutch recorded with and I’m sitting here in my studio going “yeah okay, yeah that’s really, good on you.”

Dom: They’re like just come over to the house, it’s right around the corner. I’m like “no really I should… okay.”

Aden: Did you get to see that Takamine?

Dom: Oh I don’t think…

Aden: It’s like an arch top. Oh man…

Dom: The Washburn.

Dino: The Washburn.

Dom: At least there was one he showed me.

Dino: I know the Takamine you’re talking about.

Dom: Jon and I both were just like passing basses back and forth like.

Aden: Oh that, see that’s like… oh I couldn’t be happier about that.

Dino: Speaking of a guy who has a bunch of basses too.

Aden: Yes, yeah. He’s on my list of the studio of eight guys and he’s got a long list.

Dino: Hutch is, well he’s a Boston guy for one thing. He’s a Boston native so whenever he’s back in town I usually hit him up and we get out to at least one or two Red Sox games when he’s not touring so…

Aden: Oh that’s great.

Dino: It’s funny because all the times we hang out I feel bad we talk more about baseball than we actually do about bass. It’s like “Hey wait” as on my drive home I’ll be like “oh damn I forgot to ask him about that,” you know something bass related.

Aden: I’ll say this, you just were saying Red Sox, I’ll say this.. the whole time I was with Miranda for 12 years, the coolest gigs in my opinion we ever did were baseball stadiums.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: And the coolest for me when we got to do Fenway and oh that was magical.

Dom: That’d be amazing.

Dino: That is amazing. Yeah, it’s funny you say that because they didn’t start doing concerts in Fenway till, I’m going to say maybe… well it’s probably been 10 years now but prior to that we’re like “Concerts in Fenway Park, are you kidding me,” but as a spectator too it’s a phenomenal venue to see a show.

Aden: As a performer and this can sound so jaded Rockstar and I remember reading interviews when I was younger like, “oh this is stupid” but it’s like you play all these different rooms and different venues and a football stadium is really awesome, but it’s too big.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: And a baseball stadium it’s the perfect shape and size for music. I don’t know, it just makes more sense to watch a band in a baseball stadium.

Dino: Yeah.

Aden: Those were my favorite large State, large rooms to ever play.

Dino: Yeah, yeah. No it’s, yeah, we gotta another concert series coming through Boston and they’re all playing fairs and of course Fenway now has concert hall off the back of it called the MGM Music Hall which I think it’s like a two or three thousand seats.

Aden: That’s cool.

Dino: Yeah, yeah. Hey listen we’re running… we’re just about out …well we are out of time. I know we went about five minutes over here but I have… Dom don’t laugh at me. I call this Dino’s 10 or quick 10. So it’s basically 10 quick questions that I run by you and you only have a couple of seconds to think of the answer to each question.

Aden: Okay.

Dino: So it’s kind of a rapid fire any quick questions so yeah…

Dom: Dino, what we need to do after this now, we need to create just to shame people a little bit you know or make them feel really good out of the 10 questions, we need to create an algorithm so there’s like an archetype at the end of it that like and you were the blah blah blah type bassist.

(laughing)

Dino: You just said the wrong word there, algorithm, yeah

Dom: Yeah.

Dino: From the Greek word… algorithm. Anyways, all right so you ready for this?

Aden: Okay, I’m ready.

Dino: Number one: P bass or jazz bass?

Aden: P

Dino: Number two: Passive or Active?

Aden: Passive

Dino: Number three: B15, SVT or Pro Series?

Aden: B15

Dino: Okay. Number four: cable or wireless?

Aden: Cable

Dino: Okay. Number five…

Aden: but I really had a great wireless when I was with… yep.

Dino: Number five: Pick or fingers?

Aden: Fingers

Dino: Okay. Number six IEMs or floor wedges?

Aden: Wedges

Dino: Okay. Uh seven, I know the answer to this. Pedals or no pedals?

Aden: I like no pedals. That’s what I like. I mean I have tuners and all that, but no like really effects.

Dino: Okay, all right.

Aden: It’s all preamps pedals, all preamps.

Dino: Okay. Getting away from gear. Number eight: window or aisle?

Aden: Aisle

Dino: Okay. Number nine: high bunk or low bunk?

Aden: Low

Dino: Okay, and then number ten: black with white piping or silver and blue?

Aden: Silver and blue

Dino: Okay there you go. You know there’s no prize or anything.

Aden: No I love it, it made me think. Yeah I love that, it’s all good.

Dino: And you’re right I like for number seven pedals and no pedals I thought you would have said pedals but I see where you’re coming from. You’re right.

Aden: I had preamp pedals but no effects.

Dino: Yeah, yeah. You don’t have the big Doug Wimbish board?

Aden: I have a good, I have a decent pedal rig but I just it’s hard to… I use it about once or twice a year.

Dino: That’s awesome. That’s the other thing I just wanted to touch on real quick. You’ve got me looking at scrap wood in my garage to start building my pedals on my pedal boards.

Aden: Yeah.

Dino: Because I can’t afford anything.

Aden: So that wood on the pedal board that’s the stage from Caravan of Dreams.

Dino: Oh really.

Aden: So I had got… whenever they closed that that jazz club. I got a bunch of the wood from the stage and it was a club where everybody played. Like all the Jazz Greats and I grew up playing there.

Dom: That is so cool.

Aden: So it had a lot of good mojo in that wood.

Dom: Yeah.

Aden: So I made some pedal boards and then I made a bass out of it.

Dino: That’s awesome, that’s awesome, but anyway…

Aden: You’re right you can do that you just…

Dino: You’ve inspired me to start looking at scraps of wood up in my garage

Aden: Good flooring.

Dino: You know, so a little bit of hardware and some rubber feet you got a perfect pedal board.

Aden: Exactly.

Dom: Multiple tiers. That’s what we need.

Dino: That’s what two by fours are for.

Dom: That’s right.

Dino: The pedal board’s gonna weigh 100 pounds, but… anyways Aden, man, thank you so much for coming on.

Aden: Thank you for having me guys. It was so much fun.

Dino: Like I said, I don’t know why we didn’t have you on sooner but we should have my apologies for that.

Aden: Thank you for having me.

Dino: It’s great to have you on. Everybody thanks for watching. Another two weeks, another SVT Time. I don’t have anybody lined up but we will keep you posted on who’s coming in and hopefully Aden at some point we’ll have you back on the show too.

Aden: Yeah.

Dino: You know once you have a couple more three strings built up we’ll get those back on too, but guys thank you so much. Hodgy thank you for taking care of the links in the background and Erin for posts and stuff and we’ll see you all in two weeks. All right guys, see ya.

Dom: God bless… thank you all.

Aden: Bye bye guys.